Foreign Ministry's press releases

Briefings on career opportunities at the UN and application procedures will be held in Turku and Tampere on May 7 and in Helsinki on May 8.

Ms Helen Clark, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will visit Helsinki on May 7.

Peacekeeping Finland, an exhibition portraying Finnish peacekeeping will be opened at the UN Headquarters in New York on May 30.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will travel to Suriname on 3–4 May, to attend the meeting of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). Suriname holds the chairmanship of CARICOM for the first half of 2012.

The UN Secretariat has asked Finland to deploy eight new military observers for the observation mission in Syria. Previously, it was decided to transfer two observers from the UNTSO mission to Syria. In all, ten observers from Finland are therefore taking part in the UNSMIS observer mission in Syria.

Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua Samuel Santos López will visit Finland on 26-27 April and meet Minister for International Development Heidi Hautala and Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja. Santos will also meet President of the Republic Sauli Niinistö.

Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja will visit Brussels, Belgium, from 25 to 26 April. Tuomioja will meet Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belgium Didier Reynders and participate in an international peace mediation conference to be organised in the European Parliament.

On April 21, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution, which establishes an observer mission in Syria (UNSMIS, UN Supervision Mission in Syria). The resolution also provides strong support for the implementation of the six-point plan of Joint Special Envoy for the United Nations and the League of Arab States, Kofi Annan.

Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo and Head of Kosova delegation at the Kosovo-Serbia Technical Dialogue Edita Tahiri will visit Finland from 23 to 24 April. She will meet Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, Minister of the Interior Päivi Räsänen and President Martti Ahtisaari.

The EU Foreign Ministers will gather for a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 23 April. Finland will be represented at the meeting by Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja. The meeting agenda is broad. The topics of discussion include Syria, the Middle East peace process, Iran, Burma and Afghanistan. The Foreign Ministers will also deal with the situation in Mali, the region of Sudan and South Sudan, and Guinea-Bissau.